Holy Week in Braga, northern Portugal.

One of Portugal’s most important festivals is Semana Santa, or Holy Week. A compelling interpretation of this annual event takes place in the city of Braga, located in the country’s Minho region.

The celebrations reach a climax in the three days before Easter Sunday, but it’s the solemn and evocative Ecce Homo that is the most dramatic.

A torchlit procession of local priests and hooded penitents threads its way around Braga’s old town. The only sound is an intermittent toll of a single bell. Flickering flame dances off the granite facades of medieval churches and illuminates the faces of hundreds of spectators drawn to this historic and dignified religious spectacle.